Woman of Faith: Finding In The Temple: Faith Experiencing Loss
Fr. J. Patrick Gaffney, SMM
Have you ever lost Jesus? Are there times when the Lord seems absent, deaf to your to your cries, blind to your needs? As stormy as such experience is, it is intrinsic to authentic faith!
WOMAN OF FAITH
Any mature Christian knows those days of total emptiness when we ask and do not receive, knock yet no one opens, search but find nothing. Or at least so it appears.
All experience at various times this “losing of Jesus,” or as the mystics term it, the dark night of the soul. It is intrinsic to a life of faith. The mother mourning the death of her infant, the husband caught up in a devastating divorce; the monk stripped of any sense of accomplishment, the desertion of a friend; an incurable illness, an apparent defeat; or just an indefinable spiritual malaise – all can trigger such a radical “self-emptying” that we find ourselves in that phase of faith which can be called “the loss of Jesus”.
In the midst of turmoil and dryness, He seems nowhere to be found. It is not that the tide of his love seems low; rather the ocean itself has vanished. This almost unbearable sharing in the dark night – intrinsic to our life in the crucified and risen Christ – may be the occasion for a new depth of union with the Lord. It can also make us prey to discouragement, depression, anger, inclining many to turn their back on faith itself.
MARY LIVING HER FAITH
As we saw in previous articles, before Luke narrates the public ministry of Jesus, he describes the essentials entailed in following Christ. He does this not through a dry, speculative treatise on faith, but through the joyful, colorful pageant of the Infancy Narrative. One of the principal characters in this authentic “play” is Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Her principal role is “Woman of Faith.” In the five scenes in which she appears (the five joyful mysteries of the rosary) we see faith as lived by this first Christian, this first disciple of the Lord. It is in the find scene, The Finding of Jesus in the Temple that Mary so beautifully fulfills the role of the Woman of Faith who loses Jesus. Through her example, the evangelist tells us how to deepen our faith through this terrifying yet fruitful experience of the dark night of the soul.
Luke, the inspired master play-wright, relates that Mary and Joseph lose Jesus on the return trip from Jerusalem. As part of the caravan of relatives, friends and neighbors who had gone up to the Holy City for the Passover, they thought that Jesus was with another section of the large group. How often a mother, returning from a neighborhood outing 1s sure that her youngster is in the other bus! The approximately eighty mile journey was only in the first day when Mary and Joseph sought out their Child. He was nowhere to be found. No one has seen him. The joy of His presence suddenly gone. Jesus is lost.
FINDING JESUS IN THE TEMPLE
Leaving the security of the caravan, they return to Jerusalem in search of their Child. Luke describes this period as three days, anticipating the desolating emptiness of that final (so the disciples believed!) loss of Jesus from Good Friday to Easter morn. Guilt feelings, upset, questioning, all are the innuendoes of this dramatic Lucan scene. The Child Jesus, so mysterious yet so ordinary, is he lost forever? Is this part of God’s plan? It is here that Luke gives us – through the first disciple, Mary – indicators of how we are to act when our life of faith is in the same situation, when we too lose Jesus.
Madonna and Child: painter Elisabetta Sirani: 1663
Elisabetta took over the studio of her father Giovanni Sirani in 1654-1655. This painting resides in the National Museum of Woman Arts in Washington, DC.
And this episode of the dark night, of the loss of Jesus is also swallowed up in this certain Victory of Christ, a sharing on every level of personality in Christ Risen. It is this conviction that enables us to be firm in the faith. Firm, even when the darkness urges us to desert.
Return to The Queen: Articles
TEACHING OF LUKE WHEN WE LOSE JESUS
Space permits us to stress only two of the important teachings of Luke concerning the Christians’ attitude when Jesus seems nowhere to be found. First, we must never give into discouragement. In spite of all the conflicting emotions boiling over within them, Mary and Joseph continue to seek their Child, to live their faith. This implies not only hope but more fundamentally, a conviction that – against all appearances – they are loved by God. The pitch black darkness is the infinite brightness of his Love overwhelming us, blinding us.
Mary continues to trust in God even though she does not understand what is happening. Here we have the most fundamental attitude of faith in the midst of trial; total surrender to God’s inscrutable Love.
When Jesus is found, Mary gives vent to the anguish, pain and hurt she experienced because of the loss of her Child.
“Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously”. (Lk 2:48). The first Christian speaks the words which will be on the lips of all sincere followers of Jesus; “Lord, why”? And like Mary, we do not understand the reply, we cannot grasp the reason why. Yet with Mary, in spite of the devastating loss, we must remain faithful, trusting in His Love.
LORD, WHY?
It is this firm conviction of being loved which saves us not only from discouragement but also impels us to pray even during the darkness of the night. Is this not what Luke is teaching us when he tells us that Mary and Joseph sought the child in the temple? Is it not legitimate to presume that this Lucan drama is advising us to enter into the House of God, to immerse ourselves in the wordless prayer of total abandonment especially when the loss of Jesus is so acute? This is the final scene of the Infancy Narrative. Luke foreshadows that final scene of the Lord’s public ministry, his death on Calgary. When we, with all the Lord’s disciples, experience this loss, Luke tells us that our primary attitude must be one of hope and prayerful trust, following the example of Mary.
PREPARATION FOR . . .
And this brings Luke to the second fundamental attitude when we too lose Jesus. We must be convinced that this stripping of self, this emptiness of self, is but a preparation for a new fullness of glory. It is on the third day that Jesus is found, which appears to have a double connotation; the dark night is of a length of time which we cannot determine and its end result – provided we are faithful – will be a more intense union with the Risen Lord.
It is the resurrection through the cross, Easter through Calvary, light through darkness. Intrinsic to a life of faith is the conviction that the ultimate outcome is Victory! Because of the Resurrection, the goal of the entire universe is already in place, the final chapter already published; “Thanks be to God who gives us the Victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ”! (1 Cor 15:57). And this episode of the dark night, of the loss of Jesus is also swallowed up in this certain Victory of Christ, a sharing on every level of personality in Christ Risen. It is this conviction that enables us to be firm in the faith even when the darkness urges us to desert.
. . . A NEW FULLNESS OF GLORY
This victorious outcome of the loss of Jesus is expressed in the Lucan narrative in powerful terms; “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them”. Jesus the Lord, the personal manifestation of the Wisdom of the Father, obeys our wishes! He whom the winds and the sea obey (cf Mk 4:41) obeys his creatures. This final aspect of faith in this Lucan drama is the most spectacular of all; faith is a sharing-with.
God shares our weakness so that we may share His omnipotence. Jesus accepts our total surrender so that He may truly be our servant. (cf Mk 10:45). The first scene in which Mary appears in the Lucan Infancy Narrative sees Mary expressing her obedience to the Lord; “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word”. (Lk 1:38). The find act concludes with the obedience of Jesus to his faithful disciples; and he “was obedient to them.”
The loss of Jesus, this dark night, endured with loving, prayerful hope, ends up in the glory of new life with the Victorious Lord; the lesson taught us by the Woman of Faith who loses Jesus.
The Lucan overture ends. The final curtain falls on this pageant of faith outlined in his first two chapters. Through Mary, the first disciple, we now know how we are to hear the word of God; we understand what it means to follow Jesus, we have been taught the mystery of faith. Luke can now begin his proclamation of the public ministry of Jesus, Son of Mary.
